Red Dwarf co-creator teases potential on-screen return – with new cast

Red Dwarf's creators, cast, and fans have been trying to get the beloved show back on screens for years – and now, co-creator Rob Grant has revealed a new glimmer of hope for the comedy sci-fi.

Grant and fellow writer Andrew Marshall have recently announced a prequel novel, set for release in July, which will follow Lister, Rimmer and co. as they take shore leave on Titan before the events of the TV series.

However, Grant has exclusively revealed to Radio Times that he initially had hopes that his new story would be developed for screens – and he's not ruling it out in future.

Asked whether he would be interested in the prequel making its way to screens, Grant responded: "Yes! We originally wrote it as a treatment for a TV spin-off and took it around, but it's horribly expensive, and we couldn't really raise enough interest."

He added: "We might down the line… we've been talking to streamers about it but, when you read it, [you'll realise] it’s a whole world you'd have to create. It wouldn't be cheap."

Craig Charles (Rimmer), Chris Barrie (Lister), Danny John Jules (the Cat), and Robert Llewellyn (Kryten) starred in the original series, which has made multiple comebacks across the years.

However, if the spin-off was to make it to screens, Grant is envisioning recasting the characters, admitting of the original cast: "The guys are getting old."

He added: "We’d really need to recast. That's what I thought the Titan spin-off might achieve. We’d get a new Rimmer and Lister - but the existing cast could appear in quite decent roles, if they wanted to.

"I know – and I'm with them – that the fans adore the cast. I adore them too. And just to a lot of people, it just wouldn't feel right, anybody else playing anything like those parts. But what else can you do? Except AI?!" Grant went on to joke.

For now, however, Grant is focused on the new novel, explaining: "It's Lister and Rimmer before the accident on shore leave on Titan.

"It's set one universe to the side, so we can have familiar characters but we can do different things with them, because the difficulty was writing something that was going to be original and fresh and using the same characters without breaking the canon.

"So it was quite an intricate bit of work that actually took us about a year-and-a-half longer than we were hoping!"

He added that the story will see Lister and Rimmer "get a message from the far future warning them that all realities are going to collapse unless they do something about it."

Red Dwarf: Titan will publish in hardback, ebook and audio on 16 July 2026. Red Dwarf is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

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